The Flames
by Senna Wales
Summary: A death's head stalks abroad tonight, and this time, he will not be defied. This time, SHE will be silenced once and for all. One shot. 2nd PFN Morbidity Writing Contest entry.


A/N: Well, this one-shot came in 8th place in the 2nd PFN Morbidity Writing Contest, winning the Originality Award and Enjoyability Award. Personally, this one was my favorite, and I think you'll see why.

I dedicate this phic to Schattenfreude. :)

I'd love to know what you thought of this one, so please review!

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The corpse flinched in his coffin. Fragmented lines of dialogue and movement dangled past his ears.

_"Your voice is good, and I insist that I give you voice lessons."_

A frown formed upon his death's head.

"_Good evening, child. What brings you to my humble abode?"_

"_Oh, Erik… I could not leave you, alone in the dark… May I stay?"_

"_Of course, dear. I confess I do not know you. But whatever you wish is mine to give. Shall I show you to your room?"_

Now the corpse rolled, tossed, turned. He brought his bare, skeletal hands slowly, creakingly up to his ears, and covered them. But in vain. He could not stem the flow, the frenzy of romance and lust that now whispered unrelentingly past his head, picking up speed and momentum.

"Please…" he murmured. "Not again… Let me sleep in peace…"

But to no avail. His pleading words would not end the ugly onrush.

"_Never let anyone tell you that you are ugly. You are a beautiful woman, and while I live, you are safe with me."_

_She, who had waited her entire, wretched, abused life to hear those words, now trembled and bit her crimson lip. Her beautiful blue eyes sparkled with tears, and she lowered her head beneath her delicate, chestnut curls. "Erik… Thank you…"_

"_Don't cry, dear… Come, I will comfort you…"_

"_No, really, we shouldn't… It isn't proper… Don't you remember that?"_

_But Erik ignored her, and smirking sensuously, he was at once there beside her, pulling her close to the warmth of his body. His hands moved down the length of her back, massaging gently through the thin fabric of her chemise. He lowered his sinful lips to her neck, and, in spite of herself, she gave in to the contact, and moaned in the back of her throat…_

"ENOUGH!" the corpse roared. He slammed open the heavy door of his coffin and burst through the mud, dirt, and grass, upsetting the blood-red roses left beside the tombstone. Here, upon the earth that belonged to the mortals who stalked it, the whispers were now roars, and he could hear every single word, every single proclamation of eternal love and devotion. His mind reeled from the input, and he nearly fell back into his coffin from the shock.

The horror! The horror!

He could not rest like this. Not with these voices, these teasing, mocking, destructive, terrible, terrible voices. It was a nightmare, and though he had awoken, the dreadful dream would not end. He would have to speak to her, ask her once again to reduce, if not end, the nonsensical torment she had created and multiplied.

So the corpse lifted one bare foot after the other, in search of the one who had begun it all, the perfect, flawless girl who tormented him day and night ever more. One step following the next, penetrating into the deep dark, descending into her convoluted, twisted world she called home.

He glanced around, taking in the room he found himself within. How familiar it all looked! It was the world he had originally created, the home he had invented, the foundation upon which all the others had imitated… and yet not. The organ was there, the candles were there, the scattered papers… But what else remained besides those feeble relics? How she had changed it since she took up residence here! The darkness of her heart knew no bounds. She had distorted it, warped it beyond recognition, altered it till it became her own fantasy's universe…

The corpse opened the door that he knew she would be in. It was _her_ room, the room he had intended for _her_… But in this day and age, what did "intentions" mean at all? The room had been invaded, and, yes, there she was, sitting upon the bed that she had changed for her own taste to resemble a swan. She sat there, preening, admiring her reflection in the mirror he would never have allowed. But then, she never obeyed, did she?

The girl glanced up from her grooming, startled. Her clear, luminous sapphire blue eyes widened in shock, then fear, then, finally, narrowed in disgust. She slowly rose from the bed, brushing aside a few stray chestnut curls and strands of lustrous hair, and turned to face the master.

"It is you," she said silkily, voice heavy with scorn.

The death's head nodded. "I am here, child, because you have disturbed my rest once again. I do not like being disturbed as you disturb me now. And you know what I must do."

The girl with sapphire eyes shrugged insolently. "You are dead. They reported you were dead. You've been dead for years." She peered rudely at his ravaged frame. Her sapphire eyes were as deep and dark as the sea, full of mystery and confusion incomprehensible. They were the windows of madness, full of timeless possibilities endless and improbable. "Time and rest do not bode well for you, do they? While you rest, time marches on, and I do what I can to create the best situation for me. I do what I can to create progress… to create change in your flawed story and characters." She returned to her preening.

The living corpse could only gaze on in shock. How she had hardened over the years! Before, at least, she had acknowledged his authority over these realms, had practically worshipped the ground he walked upon. Now, however, now she ignored him, disdained him…She had chosen someone else, chosen a new master to base her affections on…

"It is not my fault you cannot stay above the ground long enough to guard your precious masterpiece," the girl with sapphire eyes added, and here she gestured carelessly to the manuscript upon the dresser.

His jaw dropped as he made his way to examine the manuscript, his beloved life's work. All those years… amounting to what? To a desecration of his masterpiece! He flipped through the manuscript she had altered, desperate to find any trace, any resemblance to his original work. No. No. Nothing. She had slaughtered his story, butchered the songs, destroyed his characters. Pages and pages of imitation and addition, but none of them anything like his original. His original Don Juan…

Replacing the manuscript back down as gently as possible, clenching his bony, skeletal fists in an attempt to maintain control, he turned back around, and began pacing the room, pacing by the fireplace.

"Well? Surely you must have something good to say. It is inconceivable that you find any flaw in my revisions," said the girl with sapphire eyes, lips twisting in a contemptuous, triumphant grin. The corpse continued to pace the carpet in front of the flickering, reaching flames, flames so desperate to leave their boundaries and destroy once and for all. "You are not pleased," the girl with sapphire eyes observed at last.

"Of course not," said the death's head wryly. "Why should I? You –"

"Sshh…" said the girl craftily, placing a thin, elegant, white finger before her crimson lips. "Be careful what you say… There are many more of us here…"

And instantly, in walked her legion of relatives, more girls, just like the girl before him. They were of all ages, some far older than her, some mere babes, but most of them her age or a few years younger. Their hair were all perfect shades of red, golden, chestnut, and raven. Their eyes were illuminant, hues of emerald and azure and chocolate. They were thin and elegant, lofty and tragic, poor and abused, desperate and seductive…

When the last of them had entered the room, the girl with sapphire eyes moved to the door, and locked it. "We would not want our esteemed visitor to escape," she said slyly, and tossed the key into the fireplace.

"Your children?" said the death's head dryly, turning to face the flames, to watch the key grow black in the fire.

"Not all of them," admitted the girl. "Some of them, yes. My lover and I had a good sex life," she leered, and the corpse shuddered to imagine the torture she had put her hero through. "The rest are dear friends of mine. After you died, it was not as if I couldn't find friends of my own."

The living corpse nodded, and a cold, gray piece of flesh, disturbed by the movement, fell to the flames, twisting and disappearing into darkness. The girls gasped, and whispers of confusion raced through the crowd, questioning, wondering, scorning, insulting…

The corpse turned to face the crowd, which grew silent, and sighed. "I suppose that no matter what I do, I cannot stop you from your revisions," he began. "You, I concede, have the artistic license to do as you please. It is your choice, and I cannot stop you. But," he said, and here the crowd began to murmur angrily. What ill thing could this corpse say? He had no right, no right whatsoever to intrude upon their expression! "There is always room for improvement," he continued, and here the crowd began to murmur louder, calling out snide remarks. "For example, my Don Juan… He is a complex and murderous character. You should not simplify him as you do. I never intended him to be attractive. He wears a full mask for a reason…"

But the living corpse could get no further before the girl with sapphire eyes screeched, "Troll!" She leaped in front of him, clutching her manuscript. "You troll! How _dare_ you criticize us!" she accused, pointing a quavering finger in front of his rotted skull, brilliant sapphire eyes flashing in self-righteous indignation. Her eyes reflected the flames in their glassy surface, a paradoxical blend of blue and red and orange. "You have _no_ right whatsoever to give us _any_ kind of advice! Who are you to say what 'Don Juan' and the rest of them are like? Who are you to decide if he is kind or romantic or sweet or not? Who are you to decide if he wears a mask or not? We live our lives as we please, and we would rather enjoy a good, mindless adventure – than – than something complex!"

The crowd excitedly nodded in approval. They chattered amongst themselves, comparing notes and revisions, and glared angrily at the corpse before them. Most of them did not even know who he was.

"Your creation was pathetic! He was sad!" the girl with sapphire eyes spat. "He was perverted and weird and old and creepy, and he needed changing! We are right to embrace change! You – you're only a jealous troll, and if you don't like us, you have no right to speak your opinion!"

"A troll, am I?" said the living corpse through gritted bone. He shook his death's head regretfully. "You have no, no understanding what a troll truly is. But, if you will, I can show you…"

He reached through the burning, roaring flames, his dead flesh melting in the flames while his bony, skeletal arm remained oblivious, and picked up a log. The flames raced across the torch, dancing upon his thin, white fingers.

The corpse lowered his torch towards the girl with sapphire eyes, who backed away, fearful, manuscript quivering at her side. Slowly, so carefully, he brought the torch down, not on the girl's lustrous chocolate curls, but upon the manuscript itself.

Fiery red and orange flames instantly caught the manuscript on fire, and with a pitiful whimper, the girl dropped her smoldering, dying life story. The manuscript fell to the ground, and the flames rapidly crossed the floor, spreading throughout the room. The girls screamed and yelped, edging to the corners and walls, desperate to escape the judging flames, trampling the helpless babes amongst them. In their panic, they dropped their own stories to the floor, all of which served only to feed the fire, fuel the raging flames.

"Unlock the door!" one of them screamed, and the crowd surrounded the door, crying and whining and beating weakly upon the door. A few of the babes upon the floor had begun to smolder, their cries silenced as the flames overtook them to approach the desperate crowd.

The girl with sapphire eyes who had locked the door fled from the crowd, tears in her dulling, fading, cloudy blue eyes. As the flames raced up the length of her body, taking her down, consuming the flesh, her eyes found an end to the confusion and mystery, an end to the darkness. In the end, the flames revealed them for what they were: mere eyes, shallow and misled and uninformed.

"The door! Where is the key?" one of them screamed yet again, and the dying girl with dead eyes whispered, _"I burned it,"_ before the flames destroyed her at last.

A silence settled upon the crowd as they realized the flames had won and they were condemned to this cleansing.

The flames climbed up the walls and the ceiling, surrounding the crowd, searing their skin. Slowly, miserably, they dissolved into the flames, and the room collapsed and the flames raced on to destroy the rest of this sad, pathetic parody of a world, till at long last, none of it remained.

Having flamed the Mary Sues, Gaston Leroux returned to his grave to rest in peace.


End file.
